Friday, August 27, 2004

Israeli spy with ties to Feith, Wolfowitz?

CBS News has learned that the FBI has a full-fledged espionage investigation under way and is about to — in FBI terminology — “roll up” someone agents believe has been spying not for an enemy, but for Israel from within the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. …

CBS sources say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, “in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy.”

This put the Israelis, according to one source, “inside the decision-making loop” so they could “try to influence the outcome.”

The case raises another concern among investigators: Did Israel also use the analyst to try to influence U.S. policy on the war in Iraq?

With ties to top Pentagon officials Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the analyst was assigned to a unit within the Defense Department tasked with helping develop the Pentagon’s Iraq policy.

This so royally screws up everything we’re doing in Iraq in so many different ways that it’s hard to count them all.